The shattering of glass basketball goals during play has become a serious impediment to the safety of the participants. Current glass backboards typically are one-half (1/2) to three-eighth (3/8) inch tempered glass. When subjected to appropriate forces, such as during a player's dunk or other force applied to the rim, the tempered glass is stressed beyond its elastic limit and shatters into a myriad of small glass pieces. Typically, these pieces are roughly oblong, and approximately one-half (1/2) to one (1) inch long. These glass projectiles rain down on the players on the court, creating a possibility for skin lacerations and serious eye injury. Also, the shower of glass pieces can ricochet towards participants positioned courtside, such as cheerleaders, ball boys, cameramen and spectators. The danger to the safety of people at the game cannot be ignored by sports arena owners and operators.
In addition to the safety issues, the shattering of a glass backboard creates clean-up problems. Maintenance personal must carefully locate and remove thousands of glass particles that have fallen to the floor and slid under objects. Missing just a single piece can cause great damage if a player subsequently falls on the glass fragment. Also, even if some portions of the shattered glass do not fall to the floor during breakage, they likely will during replacement operations.
Finally, the shattering of backboard can also have a significant effect on the tempo of the game. The time necessary to clean-up and replace a backboard can cause a long delay in the game, possibly affecting the momentum experienced by one or both teams. Also, there is a feeling of machismo associated with the shattering of a glass backboard, allowing the team inflicting such damage to gain a perceived or real emotional advantage. Such events and passion can influence the outcome of a sporting event.
Recent attempts to address the above problems focus upon decreasing the stresses imparted to the glass backboard during play. Such attempts primarily address the mounting of a basketball rim to a basketball goal. See, e.g., U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,588,188 and 5,037,092. While these latest attempts may reduce the incidence of backboard shatter for new installations, backboards continue to shatter all too frequently. None of these solutions seek to restrain the glass particles from dismantling from the backboard unit once the inevitable breakage occurs. Also, apparently no prior art solutions have targeted broken glass retention systems which can be applied to existing installations in a retro-fit manner to decrease their hazardous potential.
Thus there is a need in the art for an improved glass backboard goal that minimizes the ill effects of the shattering of tempered glass.